Talk Therapy
by Sheo Darren
Summary: COMPLETE. Sixpart humorfluff fic. Triela and Claes talk about Hilshire, dreams, Hilshire, falling in love, Hilshire... You get the picture. Final Chapter. He is My Prince Charming.
1. Problem

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Gunslinger Girl is not mine. Meir is Nachtsider's creation. Linked to my previous fics _Her Prince Charming, A Picture Is Worth Your Life_, _Such A Tease_ and _Life Goes On._ Enjoy.

**  
**

**  
**The knock on her door warned Claes to slip her latest paperback addiction out of sight. "Who is it?"

"It's me. Triela. Can we talk? It's important."

Normally she did not welcome interruption of her private reading sessions. More so than her own bunk, the reading room she inherited from her "father" was hers, an inviolable fortress of solitude.

Still– she caught the slight urgency in Triela's voice. There was a first time for everything. And friends came first.

"I'm unlocking the door."

**  
**"Thanks a bunch, Claes," the relieved Triela muttered. "I owe you a lot."

"Is that so?" Personally Claes wondered about the absence of the usual teasing about her locking up to read porn. "So what is it?"

"Can I lock the door first?"

Curious, Claes nodded assent. Once the knob clicked in place, Triela looked around the room. "There aren't any hidden cameras or tape recorders here, right?"

"Not that I know of, no."

"Coming from you, that sounds good enough." After a long moment of hesitation, Triela spilled her guts. "I have a problem."

Claes' thoughts stopped in their mental tracks. _Did I hear that right?_ Triela –the oldest and most mature of the junior intelligence agents; the official big sister that everyone, even the adults, sought advice and reassurance from; who always had a lifesaving answer for every problem encountered– was in a bind?

Never in her conditioning-deadened, mnemonic exercise-sharpened memory had she encountered such a situation. Indeed she would have posed the rhetorical question of "What is it?" but for a sudden stroke of (admittedly impish) insight.

"It's Hillshire, isn't it?"

Watching Triela flounder in dismay entertained even someone who held herself above such pettiness. "How did you know?" the much-embarrassed blonde demanded minus the customary grabbing and shaking object of ire by the shoulders.

"Elementary, my dear Triela. Most of the emotional and social troubles encountered by us mechanical bodies are about their handlers. You," Claes pushed her glasses up her nose, "Are no exemption."

"I take my hat off to you, Claes." Not a drop of sarcasm in her words. "You're a genius."

"I only try. Now, what exactly is your issue with Hillshire?"

"First, promise not to laugh."

An eyebrow rose behind its clear lens shield.

"Just do it," the irritated Triela muttered.

"All right." Claes held up one palm. "I swear I will not laugh."

Triela decided to take what she could, include a deep breath. "Okay. It started out like this…"

**  
To Be Continued**


	2. Dream

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Gunslinger Girl is not mine. Linked to my previous fics _Her Prince Charming, A Picture Is Worth Your Life_, _Such A Tease_ and _Life Goes On._ Enjoy.

**  
Chapter Two: Dream**

**  
**_It was just another mission. Okay, for one thing, it didn't happen during my period, thank God, so that might have meant something special. The details are fuzzy because it went off so quickly. Anyway, it isn't important. After the mission– that's the thing._

_Hillshire asked me if I wanted to eat outside. My reward, he says. I must have been full of myself by completing the mission without having gotten shot. I agreed!_

_So off we went, with him in his nicest suit and me in a dress he got for me a million years ago. An item he conveniently had in the back of the car. And which he insisted I change into before we go out._

_I didn't feel like arguing. The night was nice and young and everything. No use spoiling my appetite and mood. So I got in the car and changed. And that's where things started to get weird._

_He peeked at me. While I undressed. Hillshire **ogled** me. I was so shocked that I didn't know what I should do. No, wait, I did know. I so wanted to shoot the dirty old bastard in the knee. Or at least leave him to rot._

_But you know what I ended up doing? I blushed. And I finished dressing, went out and let myself be led to the slaughter._

_And that's just the warm up._

_Hillshire took me to this exquisitely expensive five star hotel. Yes, I know, I know, there's something always wrong about men who bring women to a hotel. Don't ask me what it is exactly. I wouldn't know save that it's wrong._

_More importantly, where the hell did he get the money to splurge? I mean, I'm good at my job and all, and Hillshire gets paid a lot for just watching me striptease for him and other stuff, but it doesn't make sense. That one meal we had must have cost the Agency's budget for a week! Rat-face Massi would go straight through his laboratory's ceiling if he saw the bill for that one meal!_

_What hurt more was that the food was **worth** the price tag. 'Delicious' is too weak a description. The soup was delectable. The pasta was the stuff of splendor. And the wine– did you know he insisted we drink? I'm thirteen. Okay, so I'm really around fourteen or fifteen but I have the physical body and look of a thirteen-year-old. Besides, we only exchanged like one round– but still! I must have gotten myself drunk at the first sip!_

_And the bread– oh, God, the bread! One nibble sent me back in time where I was Cleopatra and Hillshire was Mark Anthony. Yeah, I know, everyone had been Cleopatra one time or another in a past life. I read, too, you know._

_Sure, Jean as Octavian was weird, my teddy bears serving me grapes and fanning me was even weirder and the asp that bit me on the butt sounded a lot like Marco Possi, which just cemented how freaky the entire thing was._

_I came back to my senses– if you can call it that– only to find myself in an even more stupefied daze. Maybe it was the wine. And then the horror compounded itself a hundredfold._

_Hillshire was looking at me in a way he'd never done before. It's hard to describe. And I don't want to, frankly. It scared me. **He** scared me._

_Oh, fine, to hell with it. It was the sort of look that expanded on you. Drew you inside and got you lost within them. Drowned you in him. That kind of icky mush. Like the stuff you drool about in the novels you read. Don't deny it, Claes. I've peeked at some of them when you weren't looking._

_What? I was curious what you saw them. And shame on you. How can you enjoy sick stuff like that? Not that there isn't anything nice about them…_

_Argh! I'm getting sidetracked/. Where was I?_

_Returning to Hillshire: his face was so close to mine. I could count the hairs in his nose. But I didn't. I saw things I never noticed before about him. How he's actually charming if he tried. No dense cannonball. Not an annoying adult. A nice human being whom I can actually come to like._

_I can't believe I'm actually describing Hillshire like this! I feel sick…_

_But the worst part was when he touched me. He held me. Cupped my face in his hands and drew me closer to him. Just like in the movies._

_I couldn't move from the bed. I was frozen in place. My legs and body didn't feel like they were there. I didn't want to move because I'd break contact, not touch him anymore._

_I **enjoyed** it._

_He told me in the manliest voice I've ever heard from him: "Triela. I love you."_

_He was going to kiss me. My God, he wanted to make babies with me! And, worst of all, I felt like I **wanted** to have his babies!_

_His head dipped down to my face- lips almost to mine- and the horrors of all horrors was that I responded by lifting my face up to meet his–_

**  
**"And then I woke up," the thoroughly disgusted Triela finished with a shudder.

**  
to be continued (evil cliffhanger lolz )  
**


	3. Explanation

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer**

Gunslinger Girl is not mine. Linked to my previous fics _Her Prince Charming, A Picture Is Worth Your Life_, _Such A Tease_ and _Life Goes On._ Enjoy.

**  
Chapter Three**

**Explanation**

**  
**It took all of Claes' innate diplomacy and self-control not to laugh her head off at the utterly sappy tale she had just heard. Instead: "That's it, then?"

"That's it? **That's it**?" Triela appeared ready to explode. "Claes, **that** was just **one** of them. And it isn't the most **vivid** one, not by a long shot. They're legion. They've been coming every single night now."

"So you've been dreaming about Hillshire. And the contents of your dreams–"

"–Would put your romance novels to shame." Triela shook pretty her head in dismay. "I'm going crazy. I don't know how to explain it. Claes, I **loathe** Hillshire. Certainly he doesn't like me much, either. Yet there we were in my dreams–" She shivered "-Doing stuff that would get me pregnant with fifty kids, Hillshire in jail for forty years and you blushing like Henrietta did around Giuseppe."

Triela grabbed Claes by the shoulder. "Just **what** the **hell** is **wrong** with **me**?"

The bespectacled girl pondered the issue for what seemed the longest time. Triela somehow managed to wait for it.

"I may have the explanation," Claes delicately offered at last.

"That was quick. Okay, enlighten me."

"Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that the reason humans dream is wish fulfillment. Wish fulfillment is the unconscious attempt to fulfill needs that cannot be expressed or that go ungratified during waking hours. This includes aggression and sex, the last of which Freud expresses a very strong interest in."

"Dirty old man," Triela muttered.

"Indeed he is. Continuing, Freud believed that the subconscious mind is the key to personality. He believed, among other things, in the **_id_**, which for him represents the human unconscious. According to Freud, the _id_ operates on the pleasure principle. That is, the _id_ always seeks physical pleasure. It is often concerned with dreams."

"So my _id_ is what causes my dreams?"

"Yes, according to Freud. The _id_ is the one that forms and triggers dreams. That brings us to your issue. Normally the _id_ is actively submerged by the _superego_, which is rather like your moral conscience that suppresses what it regards as immoral thoughts."

The word _immoral_ reminded Triela of the heinous deed she and Hillshire were about to do in her dream. She shuddered.

Claes continued in a most scholarly manner. "The resulting compromise between _id_ and _superego_ produces the _ego_, your conscious personality, the vibrant you whom we all know and love."

"Are you making fun of me, Claes?"

"I am merely describing in detail." She held her open palm out in a gesture of peace. "Bear me out. Now, consider the contents of your dream. Your _id_ fantasizes–" she watched Triela's right eyebrow twitch "–about Hillshire. A logical assumption, as he populates–"

"Pollutes."

She accepted the mean-spirited correction. "–**pollutes** your dreams. But your _superego_ sees such thoughts as bad and thus represses it. The product is your _ego_, the way you mostly treat Hillshire like dirt."

"Hey, I step on dirt because I have to, otherwise I'd fall. So where is this mumbo-jumo leading?"

Claes prepared herself for a supreme effort.

"It's very simple. Triela. You **like** Hillshire. But you consciously deny your feelings and repress them. Thus, your affection for him can only express itself when you are unconscious– for example, in your dreams. And because you repress yourself so much, your dreams are all the stronger because that is the only place your feelings can vent themselves in."

She paused to let it sink in. "Does that suffice as explanation?"

Triela's entire body language, as well as her big mouth, screamed _HELL NO_.

**  
To Be Continued. Yes, yes, cliffhangers of this sort are pure evil. So am I. lol**


	4. Handler

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Gunslinger Girl is not mine.

Gunslinger Girl is not mine. Linked to my previous fics _Her Prince Charming, A Picture Is Worth Your Life_, _Such A Tease_ and _Life Goes On._ Enjoy.

**  
**

**  
Chapter Four**

**Handler**

**  
**"I am **not** in **love** with **Hilshire**!" Triela enunciated each hateful word as if spitting out venom. "I do **not****want** to **fall** in **love** with **him**, **ever**!"

"Rather strange of you to say that. And I didn't say anything about falling in love."

"You know what I mean! It's probably just some crazy side-effect of the conditioning!"

"I doubt it. Otherwise, there would be a long line for my advice, with Rico at the very head of it due her excessively heavy conditioning and Henrietta beginning to doubt exactly **how** she sees Miss Mireille."

"I'm not Rico and Hilshire is no Meir. And even if Hilshire was a Meir, I wouldn't kiss him even if he were the last man on the planet, even if the whole of humankind depended on it–"

"You're contradicting yourself. The whole of humankind cannot depend on you if its population has been reduced to just you and Hilshire." _In more ways than one,_ Claes diplomatically decided not to say aloud.

"Stop acting so smart!" Triela's hands hovered midway between her head and Claes' throat; she couldn't decide whether to tear her ponytails off her head or to strangle her cloyingly sophistic roommate. "Oh, I suppose you're lucky because **you** don't **have** a handler, so **you** don't have to go through **all** of the problems that **we** have–"

Claes went wordlessly rigid, her eyes intense, as if preparing to step into the figurative gaping chasm that the accusation had ripped open between them. Triela, remembering a vegetable garden and burning-eyed Henrietta not so long ago, was promptly aghast and apologetic over her spiteful words.

"I'm sorry, Claes, I didn't mean to say that–"

"There is nothing to apologize for." But her extreme aloofness only belied her statements. "You are correct. I have never had a handler. I do not know what you feel. I did not go through the things you did. I cannot understand your problem at all. In this regard, I am not the correct person to turn to for advice in such. **I** am the one who must apologize."

"Don't be a stubborn mule. Only Hilshire can do that around here." The blonde sighed deeply. "Besides, who else can I turn to? Rico is useless in stuff like this. So are Liesel, Beatrice, Petrushka, the whole lot of them. And Henrietta–"

"I can easily predict her answer. She will say with such innocent faith, 'But Triela, you should _like_ your handler'," and this Claes said in an almost perfect Henrietta accent, clasping her hands extra cutely for effect, her mood suddenly bright, "And then begin comparing you and Hilshire to her and Giuseppe, thus shaming you into patching up with Hilshire."

"Exactly. You're the only who can give me a serious answer that makes sense. Besides, I can never be shamed into doing such a stupid thing. And there's nothing to patch up and no reason to be shamed."

"I seem to remember you parading around the compound while wearing your dress and with your hair down. And throwing Hilshire a flying kiss after a mission in Palermo. And continuously testing his patience by challenging him to increase your conditioning. A temptation to which he has never risen, I point out, but surely one that he considered a lot on his worse days."

"**Your** memory is the one addled by the conditioning," Triela managed to return with her usual wit. "You're talking about events that never happened."

"Perhaps." Still, however small it was, Claes' mysterious smile of pleasure remained. Again her unseen muse whispered an inspiration into her ear. "How about asking Angelica?"

That got a reaction almost as good as her earlier guess.

"Angie? You want me to ask **Angie** for help?"

"Why not? She seems capable whenever she's lucid."

"That's the nub. Angie's been mostly out of it lately. She doesn't have much time left to live, you know."

"All the more reason to go and ask her. They say a dying person has a very unique and special view of things. Anyway, it's worth a try. And we haven't visited her in a while."

"I guess anything is…"

Claes stood up. "Then I will accompany you."

"You're a pal, you know, that Claes?" This Triela said with truthful affection. Her friend smiled back.

"Always."

**  
To Be Continued**


	5. Angelica

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Gunslinger Girl is not mine. Linked to my previous fics _Her Prince Charming, A Picture Is Worth Your Life_, _Such A Tease_ and _Life Goes On._ Enjoy.

* * *

**  
Chapter Five**

**Angelica**

* * *

She was wan, Angelica, lying in her hospital bed, plugged up to the machine and IV drip that fed her and kept her alive. Doctor Bianchi gave her two months at the most. Still she spared strength to smile at her visitors.

"Hello, Claes. Hello, Triela."

"Hey, Angie. It's been a while."

They persuaded Marco to rest for a while. The man spent as much time as possible with his dying ward. Always at her side, like the father she deserved so much but only now received, and only after losing him once already.

But he would not lose her again, not in the short time left to them.

"Take good care of her, please."

"We will." Triela saw Marco out of the room, the closed the door. "So how're you feeling, Angie?"

"Not good. Sometimes I'm really sick and tired. I can't move at all and I'm very sleepy." The bedridden girl beamed beatific. "But right now I don't feel that bad."

"Well, just tell us off if we're troubling you too much, 'kay?"

"Okay. It's nice of you to visit me. Thank you for the flowers, Claes." Said set of purple blooms placed within her bedside enamel vase filled the sterile hospital air with a pleasant scent.

"You're welcome."

"Angie?" Triela gathered herself. "Do you mind if I tell you a story?"

"I **love** stories. Marco always tells me stories."

"Well, my story is not as good as _The Prince of Pasta_, but I'll try."

**  
**When she finished, Angie appeared asleep. Triela worried that her friend might have slept through the whole story and she might have to repeat herself. But the bedridden girl opened her eyes and said, "That's a very nice story."

"Really? Thanks." _Hilshire, I actually owe you one. **Not.**_

"It's very nice. Your handler must be very nice to you."

"Only in my dreams. In real life, he's a dumb, insensitive, annoying and useless idiot who can't understand my needs, who isn't there when I need him to be there, and who **is** there when he's not needed."

"Is he? But he pays a lot of attention to you, doesn't he?"

Remembering Dream Hilshire ogling her half-naked body or cupping her blushing face within his big strong hands made Triela grimace. Still: "You **could** say that…"

"He always does? Takes care of you? Thinks of you? Watches you?"

"Yes. It drives me crazy." _She's repeating the questions… maybe she's drifting…_

Angelica smiled. "That's good. He always likes you. He always thinks of you. You won't lose him the way I lost Marco once."

Triela could only nod to the wisdom of that.

"Triela? Please don't make things hard for Hilshire. I'm sure he will be very sad if he loses you. And I think he likes you and would want you to like him. Be nice to him, okay?"

"Okay." She caught sight of Claes then, and was surprised. "Oh! Claes! Did you just enter?"

"Yes, Angelica. How have you been?"

"I'm fine. Triela told me a nice story. What was that story about again, Triela? I forgot…"

**  
**It was all Triela could do not to cry for her friend– and for herself.

* * *

**  
To Be Continued**


	6. My Prince Charming

_**Talk Therapy**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Gunslinger Girl is not mine.

**  
Chapter Six: Her Prince Charming**

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"Ah? Hilshire?" 

That she wore her usual grey suit instead of that lapis lazuli spaghetti strap dress (his fault; he bought it for her on a whim and Priscilla's teasing), her hair tied up again into her favored twin tails, reassured him some that she wasn't up to a prank. Or was she? Maybe she was toying with him again. But how?

Erratically he wished that she should wear the dress more often. It did look good on her. Or was it that she looked good in it? Which came first, the dress or the girl?

Forcibly purging his mind of all impure thought, Hilshire straightened his posture so as to be worthy of respect in both their minds. "What is it, Triela?"

**  
**Triela fidgeted. She perfectly knew how to begin, having gone over the dialogue with Angelica and Claes a hundred times. But she felt she lacked– conviction? Courage?

That got her. _I am **not** **afraid** of Hilshire._

"Hilshire." She spoke slowly, measuring each word's effect. "I'm really sorry for all the trouble I've caused you."

A serious British eyebrow rose slightly in surprise. "Huh?"

"Sorry. For causing you trouble. You know. Teasing you in front of all the other handlers and girls. Walking around with my hair down. Wearing a backless dress. Talking behind your back. Stuff to annoy you and make fun of you."

Every admission scorched her tanned face. She could barely look him in the eyes, almost gave in to fidgeting and yet somehow suppressed the temptation to violently rearrange the face of the blundering blockhead gaping at her every word.

"So… I'm really sorry, and I promise I won't give you trouble of any sort anymore."

Done, Triela waited.

_Don't you dare smirk, you bastard, or I'll lose it and punch you in the nose, your forgiveness and favor be damned…_

**  
**Hilshire didn't know what to think or do. _An obedient Triela? Apologizing for all her hijinks and promising to be a considerate girl from now on? Is the world coming to an end?_

"Hilshire?"

She intently scrutinized him. Rather like a high school student trying to peek at her grades on the teacher's desk.

The exact same image, he realized, of that broken, bleeding girl he saved from that burning snuff house in Amsterdam. The girl Ratiel gave her life up for– and to whom he in turn gave his beloved's name. The girl he'd never really stopped regarding her as despite suit and shotgun and superhuman strength.

"Will you forgive me?"

Though he stumbled over his words, he already knew the answer from the beginning, the conclusion already sealed in stone.

"Uh… Sure. No problem."

"Really?" Triela sounded quite earnest to get his approval. That scared him a bit.

"Yes. There's no problem."

"Then… thanks… I guess…"

Letting out a deep sight of relief, she turned to leave. Then Hilshire remembered something he'd been meaning to tell her all this time, but never really had either the occasion to say so nor judged her mood to be right. Something that he felt he just had to get out of his system to clear the air between them. And what better time than now, with the new, improved Triela Mk II?

"Uh? Triela?"

She paused, worried anew and a bit irritated as to what frivolous detail he was about invoke. "What is it?"

"You– you don't have to tie your hair into ponytails if you don't want to."

"Huh?"

"I mean– uh, what I want to say is…" Hilshire tried to impose order on his confused thoughts. He found himself saying "You look good with your hair down."

The look on her face told him that he might have chosen the wrong words yet again.

**  
**Triela couldn't believe herself.

_The **imbecile**! Here I am, practically kowtowing for his forgiveness, and he has the chutzpah– thank you for that word, my dear English teacher and ever-loving handler!– to make me do that silly stunt again after I've apologized for it? Why, I ought to kick his–_

But she realized that Hilshire was as embarrassed as she was. Maybe even more. And that his comment wasn't exactly– bad.

_Praise? From Hilshire? About my looks?_

**  
**Her smile's brilliance dazzled him. He knew it was wrong to think and feel that way– _my metaphors really need work_– but he couldn't complain. She looked so– **good**.

"Sure thing, Hun."

Whistling, satisfied that she was leaving her handler staring at her back yet again, Triela walked away.

_The dress goes on this Thursday. I hope you like it, my prince charming...  
_

**  
**_Maybe I really should condition her more,_ the dazed Hilshire thought to himself as he shook his head and watched his wearisome– but admittedly endearing– trouble child walk away.

**  
**Hidden from sight, Claes smiled at her accomplishment. _Freda Claes Johansson, psychotherapist. Not a bad job, isn't it, Sir Raballo?_

**_No. Not at all…_**

**  
END**


End file.
